"Yes; he carried me about on his back when I was so high," and he
measured the distance with his hand. "Aleck and I were boys together. I
was about eight and he about fifteen when my father got him."
My companion paused, drumming on the leather covering of his chair. I
waited, hoping he would at least open his door wide enough to give me a
glimpse inside.
"Curiously enough," he went on, "I've been thinking of Aleck all day. I
heard yesterday that he was sick again, and it has worried me a good
deal. He's pretty feeble now, and I don't know how long he'll last."
He flicked the ashes from his cigar, nursing his knee with the other
hand. The leg must have pained him, for I noticed that he lifted it
carefully and moved it on one side, as if for greater relief.
"Rheumatism?" I ventured, sympathetically.
"No; just _gets_ that way sometimes," he replied, carelessly. "But
Aleck's got it bad; can hardly walk. Last time I saw him he was about
bent double."
Again he relapsed into silence, smoking quietly.
"And you tell me," I said, "that this old slave was loyal to your family
after his freedom?"
He hadn't told me anything of the kind; but I had found his key-hole
now, and was determined to get inside his door, even if I picked the
lock with a skeleton-key.
"Aleck!" he cried, rousing himself with a laugh; "well, I should say so!
Anybody would be loyal who'd been treated as my father treated Aleck. He
took him out of jail and gave him a home, and would have looked after
him till he died if the war hadn't broken out. Aleck wasn't raised on
our plantation. He was a runaway from North Carolina. There were three
of them that got across the river--a man and his wife and Aleck. The
slave-driver had caught Aleck in our town and had locked him up in the
caboose for safe-keeping. Then he came to my father to help him catch
the other two. But my father wasn't that kind of a man. The old
gentleman had curious notions about a good many things. He believed when
a slave ran away that the fault was oftener the master's than the
negro's. 'They are nothing but children,' he would say, 'and you must
treat them like children. Whipping is a poor way to bring anybody up.'
"So when my father heard about the three runaways he refused to have
anything to do with the case. This made the driver anxious.
"'Judge,' he said--my father had been a Judge of the County Court for
years--'if you'll take the case I'll give you this boy Aleck as a fee.
He's worth a thousand dollars.'
"'Send for him,' said my father. 'I'll tell you when I see him.'
"So they brought him in. He was a big, strong boy, with powerful
shoulders, black as a chunk of coal, and had a look about him that made
you trust him at first sight. My father believed in him the moment
he saw him.
"'What did you run away for, Aleck?' he asked.
"The boy held his head down.
"'My mother died, Marster, an' I couldn't stay dar no mo'.'
"'I'll take him,' said my father; 'but on condition that the boy wants
to live with me.'
"This was another one of the old gentleman's notions. He wouldn't have a
negro on the place that he had to watch, nor one that wasn't happy.
"The driver opened his eyes and laughed; but my father meant what he
said, and the papers were made out on those terms. The boy was outside
in charge of the Sheriff while the papers were being drawn, and when
they were signed the driver brought him in and said:
"'He's your property, Judge.'
"'Aleck,' father said, 'you've heard?'
"'Yes, sah.'
"The boy stood with tears in his eyes. He thought he was going to get a
life-sentence. He had never faced a judge before.
"'Well, you're my property now, and I've got a proposition to make to
you. There's my horse outside hitched to that post. Get on him and ride
out to my plantation, two miles from here; anybody'll tell you where it
is. Talk to my negroes around the quarters, and then go over to Mr.
Shandon's and talk to his negroes--find out from any one of them what
kind of a master I am, and then come back to me here before sundown and
tell me if you want to live with me. If you don't want to live with me
you can go free. Do you understand?'
"My father said it all over again. Aleck looked at the driver, then at
the Sheriff, and then at my father. Then he crept out of the room, got
on the mare, and rode up the pike.
"'You've thrown your money away,' said the driver, shrugging his
shoulders. 'You'll never see that nigger again.'
"The Sheriff laughed, and they both went out. Father said nothing and
waited. About an hour before sundown back came Aleck. Father always
said he never saw a man change so in four hours. He went out crouching
like a dog, his face over his shoulder, scared to death, and he came
back with his head up and a snap in his eye, looking as if he could whip
his weight in wildcats.
"'I'll go wid ye, an' thank ye all my life,' was all he said.
"Well, it got out around the village, and that night the other two
runaways--the man and wife--they were hiding in the town--gave
themselves up, and one of our neighbors bought them both and set them to
work on a plantation next to ours, and the driver went away happy.
"I was a little fellow then, running around barefooted, but I remember
meeting Aleck just as if it were yesterday. He was holding the horse
while my father and the overseer stood talking on one side. They were
planning his work and where he should sleep. I crept up to look at him.
I had heard he was coming and that he was a runaway slave. I thought his
back would be bloody and all cut to pieces, and that he'd have chains on
him, and I was disappointed because I couldn't see his skin through his
shirt and because his hands were free. I must have gotten too near the
mare, for before I knew it he had lifted me out of danger.
"'What's your name?' I asked.
"'Aleck,' he said; 'an' what's your name, young marster?'
"'Sammy,' I said.
"That's the way it began between us, and it's kept on ever since. I call
him 'Aleck,' and he calls me 'Sammy'--never anything else, even today."
"He calls you 'Sammy'!" I said, in astonishment. The familiarity was new
to me between master and slave.
"Yes, always. There isn't another person in the world now that calls me
'Sammy,'" he answered, with a tremor in his voice.
My travelling-companion stopped for a moment, cleared his throat, drew a
silver match-safe from his pocket, relighted his cigar, and continued.
"The overseer put Aleck to ploughing the old orchard that lay between
the quarters and the house. I sneaked out to watch him as a curious
child would, still intent on seeing his wounds. Soon as Aleck saw me, he
got a board and nailed it on the plough close to the handle for a seat,
and tied up the old horse's tail so it wouldn't switch in my face, and
put me on it, and I never left that plough till sundown. My father asked
Aleck where he had learned that trick, and Aleck told him he used to
take his little brother that way before he died.
"After the orchard was ploughed Aleck didn't do a thing but look after
me. We fished together and went swimming together; and we hunted eggs
and trapped rabbits; and when I got older and had a gun Aleck would go
along to look after the dogs and cut down the trees when we were out
for coons.
"Once I tumbled into a catfish-hole by the dam, and he fished me out;
and once, while he had crawled in after a woodchuck, a rock slipped and
pinned him down, and I ran two miles to get help, and fell in a faint
before I could tell them where he was. What Aleck had in those days I
had, and what I had he had; and there was no difference between us till
the war broke out.
"I was grown then, and Aleck was six or seven years older. We were on
the border-line, and one morning the Union soldiers opened fire, and all
that was left of the house, barns, outbuildings, and negro quarters was
a heap of ashes.
"That sent me South, of course, feeling pretty ugly and bitter, and I
don't know that I've gotten over it since. My father was too old to go,
and he and my mother moved into the village and lived in two rooms over
my father's office. The negroes, of course, had to shift for themselves,
and hard shifting it was--the women and children herding in the towns
and the men working as teamsters and doing what they could.
"The night before I left home Aleck crawled out to see me. I was hidden
in a hayrick in the lower pasture. He begged me to let him go with me,
but I knew father would want him, and he finally gave in and promised
to stay with him, and I left. But no one was his own master in those
days, and in a few months they had drafted Aleck and carried him off.
"Three years after that my mother fell ill, and I heard of it and came
back in disguise, and was arrested as a suspicious character as I
entered the town. I didn't blame them, for I looked like a tramp and
intended to. The next day I was let out and went home to where my mother
and father were living. As I was opening the garden-gate--it was
night--Aleck laid his hand on my shoulder. He had on the uniform of a
United States soldier. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. I had lost
track of him, and, as I found out afterward, so had my father. We stood
under the street-lamp and he saw the look in my face and threw his hands
up over his head as a negro does when some sudden shock comes to him.
"'Don't turn away f'om me, Sammy,' he cried; 'please don't, Sammy.
'Tain't my fault I got on dese clo'es, 'deed it ain't. Dey done fo'ced
me. I heared you was here an' I been tryin' to git to ye all day. Oh, I
so glad to git hold ob ye, Sammy, so glad, so glad.' He broke out into
sobs of crying. I was near it myself, for he was the first one from home
I had seen, and there was something in his voice that went through me.
"Then he unbuttoned his coat, felt in his pocket, pushed something into
my hand, and disappeared in the darkness. When I got inside and held it
out to the light, he had given me two five-dollar greenbacks!
"I was sitting by my mother the next night about ten o'clock--she
wouldn't let me out of her sight--when there came a rap at the door and
Aleck came in. I knew how my father would feel about seeing him in those
clothes. I didn't know till afterward that they were all he had and that
the poor fellow was as bad off as any of us.
"Father opened upon Aleck right away, just as I knew he would, without
giving him a chance to speak. He upbraided him for going into the Army,
told him to take his money back, and showed him the door. The old
gentleman could be pretty savage when he wanted to, and he didn't spare
Aleck a bit. Aleck never said a word--just listened to my father's abuse
of him--his hands folded over his cap, his eyes on the two bills lying
on the table where my father had thrown them. Then he said, slowly:
"'Marse Henry, I done hearn ye every word. You don't want me here no
mo', an' I'm gwine away. I ain't a-fightin' agin you an' Sammy an' neber
will--it's 'cause I couldn't help it dat I'm wearin' dese clo'es. As to
dis money dat you won't let Sammy take, it's mine to gib 'cause I saved
it up. I gin it to Sammy 'cause I fotched him up an' 'cause he's as much
mine as he is your'n. He'll tell ye so same's me. If you say I got to
take dat money back I got to do it 'cause I ain't neber dis'beyed ye an'
I ain't gwine to begin now. But I don't want yer ter say it, Marse
Henry--I don't want yer to say it. You is my marster I know, but Sammy
is my _chile_. An' anudder thing, dey ain't gwine to let him stay in dis
town more'n a day. I found dat out yisterday when I heared he'd come.
Dar ain't no money whar he's gwine, an' dis money ain't nothin' to me
'cause I kin git mo' an' maybe Sammy can't. Please, Marse Henry, let
Sammy keep dis money. Dere didn't useter be no diff'ence 'tween us, and
dere oughtn't to be none now.'
"My father didn't speak again--he hadn't the heart, and Aleck went out,
leaving the money on the table."
Again my companion stopped and fumbled over the matches in his safe,
striking one or two nervously and relighting his cigar. It was
astonishing how often it went out. I sat with my eyes riveted on his
face. I could see now the lines of tenderness about his mouth and I
caught certain cadences in his voice which revealed to me but too
clearly why the negro loved him and why he must always be only a boy to
the old slave. The cigar a-light, he went on:
"When the war closed I came home and began to pick up my life again.
Aleck had gone to Wisconsin and was living in the same town as young
Cruger, one of my father's law-students. When my father died, I
telegraphed Cruger, inviting him to serve as one of the pall-bearers,
and asked him to find Aleck and tell him. I knew he would be hurt if I
didn't let him know.
"At two o'clock that night my niece, who was with my mother, rapped at
my door. I was sitting up with my father's body and would go down every
hour to see that everything was all right.
"'There's a man trying to get in at the front door,' she said. I got up
at once and went downstairs. I could see the outlines of a man's figure
moving in the darkness, but I could not distinguish the features.
"'Who is it?' I asked, throwing open the door and peering out.
"'It's me, Sammy--it's Aleck. Take me to my ole marster.'
"He came in and stood where the light fell full upon him. I hardly knew
him, he was so changed--much older and bent, and his clothes hung on
him in rags.
"I pointed to the parlor-door, and the old man went on tip-toe into the
room and stood looking at my father's dead face for a long time--the
body lay on a cot. Then he placed his hat on the floor and got down on
his knees. There was just light enough to see his figure black against
the white of the sheet that covered the cot. For some minutes he knelt
motionless, as if in prayer, though no sound escaped him. Then he
stretched out his big black hand and passed it over the body, smoothing
it gently and patting it tenderly as one would a sleeping child. By and
by he leaned closer to my father's face.
"'Marse Henry,' I heard him say, 'please, Marse Henry, listen. Dis
yere's Aleck. Ye'r wouldn't hear me the las' time but yer got ter hear
me now. It's yo' Aleck, Marster, dat's who it is. I come soon's I could,
Marse Henry, I didn't wait a minute.' He stopped as if expecting an
answer, and went on. 'I ain't neber laid up nothin' agin ye though,
Marse Henry. When ye turned me out dat night in the col' 'cause I had
dem soger clo'es on an' didn't want me to gin dat money to Sammy, I
knowed how yer felt, but I didn't lay it up agin ye. I ain't neber loved
nobody like I loved you, Marse Henry, you an' Sammy. Do yer 'member when
I fust come? 'Member how ye tuk me out o' jail, an' gin me a home?
'Member how ye nussed me when I was sick, an' fed me when I was hongry,
an' put clo'es on me when I was most naked? Nobody neber trusted me with
nothin' till you trusted me, dey jus' beat me an' hunt me. An' don't yer
'member, Marse Henry, de time ye gin me Sammy an' tol' me to take care
on him? you ain't forgot dat day, is yer? He's here, Marster; Sammy's
here. He's settin' outside a-watch-in'. Him an' me togedder, same's we
useter was.'
"He got upon his feet, and looked earnestly into the dead face. Then he
bent down and picked up one corner of the white sheet, and kissed it
reverently. He did not touch the face. When he had tiptoed out of the
room, he laid his hand on my shoulder. The tears were streaming down his
face: 'It was jes' like ye, Sammy, to send fo' me. We knows one anudder,
you an' me--' and he turned toward the front door.
[Illustration: I hardly knew him, he was so changed.]
"'Where are you going, Aleck?' I asked.
"'I dunno, Sammy--some place whar I kin lay down.'
"'You don't leave here to-night, Aleck,' I said. 'Go upstairs to that
room next to mine--you know where it is--and get into that bed.' He held
up his hand and began to say he couldn't, but I insisted.
"The next morning was Sunday. I saw when he came downstairs that he had
done the best he could with his clothes, but they were still pretty
ragged. I asked him if he had brought any others, but he told me they
were all he had. I didn't say anything at the time, but that afternoon I
took him to a clothing store, had it opened as a favor to me and fitted
him out with a suit of black, and a shirt, and shoes and a
hat--everything he wanted--and got him a carpet-bag, and told Abraham,
the clothier, to put Aleck's old things into it, and he would call for
them the next day.
"When we got outside, Aleck looked himself all over--along his sleeves,
over his waistcoat, and down to his shoes. He seemed to be thinking
about something. He would start to speak to me and stop and look over
his clothes again, testing the quality with his fingers. Finally he laid
his hand on my arm, and, with a curious, beseeching look, in his
eyes, said:
"'Sammy, all yesterday, when I was a-comin', I was a-studyin' about it,
an' I couldn't git it out'n my mind. It come to me agin when I saw Marse
Henry las' night, an' I wanted to tell him. But when I got up dis
mawnin' an' see myself I knowed I couldn't ask ye, Sammy, an' I didn't.
Now I got dese clo'es, it's come to me agin. I kin ask ye now, an' I
don't want ye to 'fuse me. I want ye to let me drive my marster's body
to de grave.'
"I held out my hand, and for an instant neither of us spoke.
"'Thank ye, Sammy,' was all he said."
Again my companion's voice broke. Then he went on:
"When the carriages formed in line I saw Aleck leaning against the
fence, and the undertaker's man was on the hearse. I caught Aleck's eye
and beckoned to him.
"'What's the matter, Aleck? Why aren't you on the hearse?'
"'De undertaker man wouldn't let me, Sammy; an' I didn't like to 'sturb
you an' de mistis.'
"The tears stood in his eyes.
"'Go find him and bring him to me,' I said.
"When he came I told him the funeral would stop where it was if he
didn't carry out my orders.
"He said there was some mistake, though I didn't believe it, and went
off with Aleck. As we turned out of the gate and into the road I caught
sight of the hearse, Aleck on the box. He sat bolt upright, head erect,
the reins in one hand, the whip resting on his knee, as I had seen him
do so often when driving my father--grave, dignified, and thoughtful,
speaking to the horses in low tones, the hearse moving and stopping as
each carriage would be filled and driven ah pad.
"He wouldn't drive the hearse back; left it standing at the gate of the
cemetery. I heard the discussion, but I couldn't leave my mother to
settle it.
"'I ain't gwine to do it,' I heard him say to the undertaker. 'It was my
marster I was 'tendin' on, not yo' horses. You can drive 'em home
yo'-self.'"
My companion settled himself in his chair, rested his head on his hand,
and closed his eyes. I remained silent, watching him. His cigar had gone
out; so had mine. Once or twice a slight quiver crossed his lips, then
his teeth would close tight, and again his face would relapse into calm
impassiveness.
At this instant the curtains of the smoking-room parted and the Pullman
porter entered.
"Your berth's all ready, Major," said the porter.
My companion rose from his chair, straightened his leg, held out his
band, and said:
"You can understand now, sir, how I feel about these continued outrages.
I don't mean to say that every man is like Aleck, but I do mean to say
that Aleck would never have been as loyal as he is but for the way my
father brought him up. Good-night, sir."
He was gone before I could do more than express my thanks for his
confidence. It was just as well--any further word of mine would have
been superfluous. Even my thanks seemed out of place.
In a few minutes the porter returned with, "Lower Four's all ready,
sir."
"All right, I'm coming. Oh, porter."
"Yes, sir."
"Porter, come closer. Who is that gentleman I've been talking to?"
"That's Major Sam Garnett, sir."
"Was he in the war?"
"Yes, sir, he was, for a fact. He was in de Cavalry, sir, one o'
Morgan's Raiders. Got more'n six bullets in him now. I jes' done helped
him off wid his wooden leg. It was cut off below de knee. His old man
Aleck most generally takes care of dat leg. He didn't come wid him dis
trip. But he'll be on de platform in de mornin' a-waitin' for him."